On Sat, Dec 28, 2002 at 12:52:06PM +0100, Grzegorz Nieweglowski wrote:
> Olivier Chapuis nawypisowywa�(a):
> >> I like the result!
> >> Should buttons (the content) be rotated too in the long run?
> >
> > No I think that buttons must not be rotated. But note that the
> > UseTitleStyle part of the Buttons decor is rotated. A ButtonStyle
> > Pixmap is a brain "mark" image, if you rotate it you will trouble
> > users
>
> Well, I may be a weirdo, but I personally am troubled more by the
> not-rotated buttons. I would say that it requires more "brain work" to
> assemble the rotated title bar into something familiar if the buttons
> are not rotated (because the brain already rotates the whole image (the
> text IS rotated) as to "understand" it, and then it has to rotate the
> buttons again (because they don't play along with the, already rotated,
> text). So it's twice the work for the brain - If you happen to "see" the
> titlebar as a whole, and not as "rotated text"+"not rotated buttons".
>
About text rotation and the brain: say that you have a window with
name "rxvt". When you read the window title you do not read the "r",
then the "x" ... and finally the the "t". Your brain directly recognize
the full word "rxvt". So text rotation is good because you have
the word "rxvt" horizontally written is your brain (as a motif) but not:
r
x
v
t
in any given direction. There is an interesting discussion on which
rotation (cw or ccw) is the best one somewhere in the fvwm-workers
archive.
Let's come back to our ship: buttons. We should recognize the good
button as fast as possible: if I want to maximize a window I want
to find my maximize button. It is clear that if the maximize button
is not rotated you will find it more easily. That's all.
Some examples:
Menu button: |\ Iconify button: -- Maximize Button: /\
|/ \/ --
If you rotate cw the buttons, then menu button looks like the
iconify button. If you rotate buttons, which buttons is the
maximize button, which one is the iconify button?
> So I would be for the rotation of the button pixmaps. Pretty please :)
> (Of course as an toggle-option)
>
> Furthermore, it's just that there are themes that simply require the
> rotation of buttons.
Which themes? themes from fvwm-themes? themes from Suzanne? All these
themes have been designed before vertical titles. IMHO, they should
be redesigned (and MultiPixmap may help a lot). Often a button has
two parts a background (e.g., a grey gradient, often this bg is
"common" to all the buttons) and a "foreground" (the real button:
"maximize", "menu", "iconify", ...etc.). The solution is to use
"UseTitleStyle" in ButtonStyle for defining the background (this
is rotated) and to AddButtonStyle the various foreground buttons.
Note that with a Colorset or a MultiPixmap TitleStyle, "UseTitleStyle"
is powerful as the set of buttons is incorporated in the TitleStyle
decor (for example with a Colorset HGradient the gradient is drawn
on the full bar (title+buttons) and not repeated on each buttons).
Of course, one can implement something like
{Stretch,Shrunk,Tiled,Adjusted,}Pixmap (AllowsRotation) file
in ButtonStyle. But I am not sure this is a good idea. This may
leads to some terrible fvwm config decoration hack (as the current
nanoGUI fvwm-themes theme).
> The current rotation feature is great, but if
> a theme uses not-so-symmetrical buttons you will never *want* to rotate
> the titlebar - because the theme will start to look ugly, or it will
> simply lose it's "magic". Unless the buttons get rotated together with
> the text/background pixmaps.
>
Do you have an example that cannot be fixed by a clever config?
Olivier
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